Contents
- Important Dates
- Honouring the Life and Legacy of John Marsden
- Prep News
- Year Two Puppets
- Artwork Reflections by Year 7
- 'It's a bad situation when there's nothing you can do' By Fleur Hudson
- 3/4J Lerderderg Gorge
- 3/4M Werribee Gorge
- Kryal Castle Chess Tournament
- Year 1/2 Excursion to Williamstown (...not Seaford)
- Year 6 Freedom Feast
- Insect Survey Sleepover
- Kitchen Garden
- Year 7 Girls Respectful Relationships Sleepover
- Year 6 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Trip
- Year 7 Paddle Camp
- Healesville Camp
- Community Announcements
Important Dates
- Term One ends: Thursday 10th April
- Term Two: 29th April - 27th June
- Term Three: 21st of July - 18th September
- Term Four: 7th October - 12th December
Honouring The Life and Legacy of John Marsden
After several months of planning, we are pleased to announce that we've secured a date and venue for John’s memorial. On Monday, May 26, 2025, we will gather at the Melbourne Town Hall to celebrate John’s remarkable life and legacy. The event will feature speeches from John’s family and friends, along with contributions from his colleagues in education and literature. We’ll also be treated to performances by students from Candlebark and Alice Miller. In support of the students, we’ll be arranging transportation to the event, and we truly hope many of you can join us on this meaningful day.
This will be a free event, but tickets will be required to ensure that those close to John are able to attend. Ticketing details will be shared with our school community, past and present, in the coming weeks.
A special note of thanks goes to Sam McMillan (Sammy J), the radio host and comedian, who played a pivotal role in securing the Melbourne Town Hall for the event. We all agreed it would be the perfect venue to honor John, though finding an opening took some time. Sam has generously volunteered his time to MC the celebration and is helping us plan the event with great care.
In other exciting news about John’s legacy, we are thrilled to announce that the John Marsden Prize for Writing for Young Adults will be awarded for the first time next year. Creative Victoria and the Labor Government acted quickly after John’s passing to rename this award in his honour, and it was officially announced at this year’s Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. This is a fitting tribute to John’s immense impact on young readers and the young adult fiction genre. John’s first novel, So Much To Tell You, won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award in 1988, and it’s special to see his work commemorated through this prize.
John’s sister, Robin Farran, shared some touching words: “John was a pioneer in creating literature that was accessible and meaningful to young adults. It was his lifelong passion, and we look forward with excitement to seeing this prize awarded, thereby continuing John's great legacy.”
Erin Vincent, CEO of The Wheeler Centre, who worked with John at the ABC, added, “John Marsden’s impact on young adult literature is immeasurable, inspiring creativity and igniting a love of reading among young audiences around the world. Only someone with such deep respect for young people could create such beloved characters that will live on in our national memory. The Wheeler Centre is thrilled to honour John Marsden as part of the 2026 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, celebrating the very best of Australian writers.”
We hope to see many of you in May as we come together to celebrate John’s extraordinary achievements and vision. We are all part of this special community because of him.
Sarita Ryan
Prep news
This term, the Preps and Grade 6 students were paired up as part of our buddy system. Together, they’ve been creating artwork as keepsakes to remember each other by. To help the Preps prepare for their first camp, the Grade 6 students made sleeping bags for the Preps' teddies. It is safe to say the teddies are comfy and cosy in their new sleeping bags.
During a Friday Club, the Preps visited the Romsey Eco Therapy Park. The water play feature was in hot demand on the hot day. The children dug out a deep damn, filled it with water, then leaped off the logs to splash in the cool water.
Year Two Puppets
Year Two Puppet Sleepover
On Monday the 17th February, the Year Twos had their first sleepover of the year. It was of course, the super exciting and marvellously silly puppet show extravaganza!
There was pasta and ice cream (not together of course), zombie tag, puppet performances and wriggly kids in sleeping bags not sleeping!
It was a hoot and we loved it!
Nat Banks
Year Two Puppet Creations
Puppet madness has hit the Year 2s in first term. Inspired by the amazing puppet master Jim Henson, students created their own envelope puppets. Their puppets were creative and individual and they wrote some funny scripts to go along with their puppet characters.
Nicky Russell and Nat Banks
Artwork Reflections by Year 7
While the first Healesville Camp was going on, the Year 7s travelled about taking in some of the Arts in the region. We travelled to Bendigo to see the War of the Worlds production by the wonderful Arena Theatre Company. It was a remarkable show, with each performance occurring simultaneously in Whyalla, Barmera and Bendigo with unique location-specific script and in person audiences in each location. Across the performance the three ensembles move between their own location specific experience and interacting with live video and voice calls.
After a sleepover at school, where the Eucalyptus classroom began its long-awaited paint makeover, we set off to the city for a day of Galleries. We headed to the Outsiders exhibition first- a pop-up exhibition dedicated to graffiti art that backs onto Hosier Lane. We were met by Sandra, the owner of the collection, who opened the gallery early just for us, and who showed us around the collection. Students spent time in the gallery and had to choose a work of art that they connected with.
Katy Penman
The War of the Worlds play was about a bunch of teenage drama students about to perform a series of scenes from classic books like Frankenstein, but they are interrupted by Aliens invading Earth. I think it was pretty cool to see kids our age performing. It included things like LGBQITA and challenges like ADHD. It was a great experience and shows how brave these young people are. They had projected pre-recorded videos and stills on the screen of other drama kids from other small rural towns stuck waiting for the invasion to be over. I liked all the very different characters and how much joy could come out of a difficult time like when they all burst into song. It was amazing to see all the different personalities in only a few people, the acting was great. I really loved this play even though it was very different to all the others I have seen.
Daisy Ford
I chose The Last Turtle on Earth by Junker Projects because I really like all the small details. Most of the art works I liked in the exhibition were very intricate. If you look closely, you can find everyday items like the sushi soy sauce containers which look like little fish. It adds to the sea vibe, but because they are plastic it makes the ocean almost apocalyptic with the strands of plastic bags which are wrapped around the fish. The turtle is entirely made out of junk but still looks like it is serenely swimming. I think that it sends the important message that we have to look after our oceans, or they will end up looking very similar. It's not just the sea creatures that rely on the ocean, we do too.
Henry Tucker
I liked Nobody Ever Noticed the Bunyip by Herakut because it shows life and death, loneliness and fortune and that all of these things are a part of life and that you have to live these emotions to be who you are. These might be things that people don't want to feel, but they're what make up a person- no one is all good, no one is all bad. I thought the sculpture of the bunyip showed the pain in others underneath the smile and goodwill. This is the artwork that caught my eye from the toes to the twig-like-things on its head to the fingers and shoulders that are all carved with such thought and love. I couldn't take my eyes off it, it was like it was calling to me, a sculpture that meant and said so much about humans and how we behave. Some people will never notice the bunyip and they are ugly on the inside. But the people who do are the people who know what's wrong and know we need to fix it, to fix us.
Ivy Anderson
This artwork by Junker Projects is called Fisherman Chronicles 3, and is about how the future might look, a land so strewn with junk that the land has become junk. Every animal has to adapt to this land. I think this piece is about change. I love the small details and how it has been made from so called junk yet is a beautiful piece of art. One of my favourite bits in this artwork is an eggbeater that makes up the fishing rods. I also love the pipe that has the slug coming out of it, and the little guy fishing is also amazing.
Hudson Ellis
Waiting for Too Long by Adnate: This piece of art just jumped out to me. I don't know why. She's just looking into the distance, waiting too long for someone. The detail is amazing. Her eyes have a story for me like she's been through a lot. Waiting, just waiting for someone to come home. The wreath on her head and the paint on her face is like she has been dancing because her people have come home. Then maybe she realised that not all of them have come home. She is just waiting.
Matina Partimos
'It's a bad situation when there's nothing you can do'
That was the first thought that popped into Victoria's head as she plummeted five hundred metres down, as the wreckage of the plane cut her and the wind, stinging and biting, whipped her hair into her eyes. The second thought was about the book, that, miraculously, she still had a grip on. She opened to the page she'd dog eared, and began to read.
Fleur Hudson
3/4J Lerderderg Gorge
3/4J started their hiking journey at the Lerderderg Gorge. It was a beautiful sunny day and the students who were in Year 4 had been to the gorge when they were in Year 2. They were shocked to see that the water was all gone, where we began our trip at Mackenzie’s Flat. The last time that they were here, the water had been so deep that we couldn’t cross the river so we had to go an alternate route to get to Graham’s Dam. Fortunately there was still some water at the point in the river at Graham’s Dam so they got to enjoy a lovely swim there. We had some great conversations about where the water had gone, why the area was so dry and why there was some water in some parts of the river bed and why it was empty in other parts.
We stayed at Boar Gully at the Brisbane Ranges overnight, enjoying a lovely dinner of sausages and salad. The area was lovely and we had an early start the next morning, packing up the tents and heading off to the Werribee Gorge.
The students completed the epic Werribee Gorge Circuit Walk – 10km of quite challenging terrain. They were rewarded with an amazing swim at ‘The Beach’ there and their highlight was crossing the rocks that had a rope to hold on to, to help cross that section of the hike. With the promise of Split icy-poles as encouragement to climb the last monstrous hill to the bus, the children were victorious, hot and tired. It was amazing to see how well they conquered the two days of hiking and camping.
Nicky Russell and Wendy Powell
3/4M Werribee Gorge
3/4M had warmer weather to complete the hike at the Lerderderg and Werribee Gorges, being in the high 20s. With this in mind, we reversed the hikes and tackled the Werribee Gorge on the first day as it was slightly cooler that day.
We altered the way we walked the Werribee Gorge circuit walk and entered and exited the same way, rather than doing the entire circuit. The climb across the rocks at one point of the gorge proved to be very challenging for some, but they showed courage and determination and successfully crossed this area, not once but twice in one day! They all loved swimming at ‘The Beach’, if you haven’t been there, put it on your holiday bucket list!
We stayed at the Firth Park Campground which was a beautiful campground, albeit a while away from the Werribee Gorge and a very slow crossing of the 12km dirt road to get to it. The students did an excellent job erecting their tents and playing games in the trees until bedtime.
The next day we ventured to the Lerderderg Gorge which was a very easy walk in comparison to the Werribee Gorge. We had many discussions about the level of the water, why it was a completely dry riverbed in some areas of the gorge and then had water in other parts of it. We had an enjoyable swim at Graham’s Dam and gave them a 5-minute warning when it was almost time to leave. About a minute after that warning, a red bellied black snake decided to go for a swim too. Needless to say, it was a quick evacuation, and we had no issues getting the children out of the water!
Nicky Russell and Jules Meltzer
Kryal Castle Chess Tournament
Our first chess tournament of the year, and a lot of excitement amongst the team of twenty two! We left school at eight o’clock and drove the hour and a half to the ancient castle on the edge of, well nowhere really! The Western Highway?
There were about a hundred and fifty players there, a mix of very experienced and first timers, just like us.
The kids find their names on the screen, look at the table number and which colour they have been allocated, then they’re off to find the table and discover who their opponent is. There’s often some good natured chat, or sussing each other out ("Do you know the four move checkmate?").
The matches pair up players with similar scores, so by the end of the day you should be playing someone around your standard. There are seven games, usually each player has twelve or fifteen minutes on their clock, which they must hit between moves. It’s a long and pretty challenging day for all the players, broken up with a snack and drink of water between each of the rounds.
The school came fourth by a point, not bad, but plenty of room for improvement! Play your kid at home; join chess.com; watch Gotham chess on youtube. Everything helps!
Andy Moffat
Year 1/2 Excursion to Williamstown (...not Seaford)
In true Candlebark style, our wonderful day at the coast went very little like originally planned, but was a terrific excursion. After learning about water throughout the first term, we had planned to go to the water treatment plant. However, due to a nasty traffic accident and ensuing gridlock, we made a speedy plan B and headed to the Jawbone Marine Reserve in Williamstown. There we had a delightful walk along the coastline through the endangered salt marsh ecosystem spotting a pelican here and a spoonbill there all the way to the beach at Williamstown. Being the inland kids that they are, seeing the beach was pretty magic. One student asked a woman who was swimming nearby if she was actually a mermaid. With a laugh she dived beneath the water so we will never really know.
Katy Penman
Year 6 Freedom Feast
The Year 6s have been learning about the media and how, at times in Australia’s history, an issue has been framed differently depending on who is telling the story. They have looked at refugees as an area where this has happened regularly and discussed how finding out personal stories about refugees can humanise this issue and help us find compassion and respect for anyone who has to flee their homeland, family and culture.
To honour these newly learned stories and to show our compassion, the Year 6s are putting on a Freedom Feast, where they use refugee recipes and cook up a feast for their families to raise money for refugees.
In preparation for this feast, the 6s thought it best to have a practice run where they whipped up all the dishes prior to the event.
And WOW! What an INCREDIBLE job they did chopping, baking, frying, blending, whipping and layering these dishes. The whole thing took a few hours and the students were working hard, communicating with each other beautifully and showing commitment to the dish they were in charge of.
A few hours later, after the cooking was done and the table was laid, we all feasted on the food, and it was nothing short of DELICIOUS! We all had seconds, then thirds and then fourths! We ate like an army of people who hadn’t eaten for days, and then the students showed further dedication in their excellent clean-up of the kitchen.
The meal was a great success! Which meant that spirits were high, games were played and sleep was (eventually) had.
We look forward to the upcoming feast where we cook up the same dishes once again and hope to reach our fundraising goal of $1000 dollars! Wish us luck!
Insect Survey Sleepover
It's easy to overlook the little creatures at Candlebark when we are fortunate enough to be bombarded with the macro world of kangaroos, koalas and squawky cockies in our daily school life. On Thursday 27th March however, we had a special guest who provided a stage for the little dwellers of the Tye Estate, the invertebrates, to shine.
John Walter is heavily involved with the Pollinator Project, iNaturalist and LandCare. He knows an awful lot about insects. He came and set up two light sheets and used UV lights to draw the insects in to settle on the fabric. With infinite patience he explained to kids, for hours, which family the insects belonged to and pointed out interesting distinguishing features. He took photos of each species and estimated we had seen more than 200. While the keenest of the keen kids went to bed nearing 11, John kicked on until 2am, a contented smile on his face as we wished him goodnight.
John is the author of the Field Guide to Insects of Central Victoria and it was a delight seeing the kids who had signed up to this optional sleepover spend time with someone so passionate about their interests.
John now has the task of identifying all the photos he took at school and uploading them to iNaturalist for other citizen scientists. He has indicated he would be interested in coming back during the winter months (as he is not busy collecting data from the field in the chilly months!) and showing interested students how to key out a specimen and how to access and utilise iNaturalist. As Noah in Year 5 said, "That was the coolest and best sleepover I've ever been on. Or maybe the second best."
Katy Penman
Kitchen Garden
Year 1 Kitchen Garden
For the first four weeks of term, the Year 1s spent their Friday, sunny afternoons in the Kitchen Garden club with some great parent helpers. There was lots of action happening, from discovering frogs and tadpoles in the ponds, to planting seeds, and digging up the potato patch to find many yummy little potatoes. They even got to make their very own bird feeder using twigs, an apple and sunflower seeds. Another day was spent making colourful number tiles which will eventually become a feature in the garden. It was great to see so many excited children in the garden.
Nicky Russell
Year 2 Kitchen Garden
Year 7 Girls Respectful Relationships Sleepover
A few weeks ago, the year seven girls stayed at CB for a sleepover where deep discussions were had, questions were asked, insanely good food was cooked, tiramisu was devoured and the wildest dance party imaginable was had outside under the big blue sky!
These sleepovers are vital in creating connections between kids and teachers, creating safe spaces for hard conversations, allowing time for questions that long to be asked and explored, and developing greater communication skills.
If we were to weigh up the success of these sleepovers, we only need to look to the girls who asked us that night:
“Can we do these sleepovers EVERY WEEK PLEASE?”.
We can’t, unfortunately, but we will certainly continue providing as many as we can.
Nat Banks
Year 6 Melbourne Symphony Orchestra trip
On the 28th of March the Year 6 group travelled to Melbourne to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra performing a truly impressive concert called "Seasons". Not only was this an amazing concert but it was conceived and developed by Candlebark's very own flute teacher, Caitlin Williams.
As part of The Seasons Project Melbourne String Ensemble commissioned new music for string orchestra based on indigenous seasons, which were then programmed alongside Vivaldi's famous "Four Seasons". The project has created a significant collection of new works by some of Australia's most impressive First Nations composers, including James Henry, Aaron Wyatt, William Barton, Christopher Sainsbury and Brenda Gifford.
The result was magnificent and, as a result, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra adopted the concept - and the Year 6s (along with thousands of concert-goers) were super-lucky to have been in the audience for this wonderful concert.
Huge kudos to Caitlin for creating such a brilliant event - and congrats to the Year 6s for being such wonderful concert-goers.
Taran Carter
Year 7 Paddle Camp
Last week, Candlebark’s Year 7s set off on an epic 70-kilometer paddling adventure down the Murray River, travelling from Yarrawonga to Kyabram with Sam Ford leading the way. It was a trip full of challenges, teamwork, and plenty of fun—all while soaking up the beauty of the river.
With perfect weather on our side, we made the most of it—canoeing through calm waters, launching into wild water fights, and even swimming across the river to New South Wales. Each night, we pulled up on sandy riverbanks to set up camp, where we refuelled with surprisingly good food after a huge day on the water.
We had interesting encounters with the locals, including koalas, sea eagles, giant Murray cod, black furry cockroaches, Steve the dog and fishing boat discos. The only serious injury was to a teacher’s pride by having their canoe swamped by ‘pirates.’ Starry nights were followed by crisp clear mornings and Sam’s famous porridge and peaches breakfast.
A fantastic week afloat and submerged and the only regret was that it had to end.
Shaun Dennis, Jo Croke, Jules Meltzer and Sam Ford
Healesville Camp
Healesville Camp One
Healesville Camp Two
The second Healesville Camp, with the Preps, Year 3 and 5s, started off brilliantly. The sun was shining, most of the tents were already set up, they just needed relocating and there was a lot of excitement in the air.
Over the next two days the children got to run, play, swim, jump, feed the birds and ride the bikes on the pump track. Unfortunately, the Preps started getting ill and they went home a day early but definitely in time to miss the rain.
The last night at camp ended with a talent show and a dance party in the kitchen area which was a great way to end the camp. The rain gods were smiling on us and stopped for us to pack up in the morning without getting wet.
Nicky Russell
Year 6 Musing on the Value of Camps- Anonymous
I haven't been at Candlebark for that long, but I used to go on camps a lot at my old school and I have never been homesick but lots of my friends have been and now they never get homesick. I think that they got less and less homesick every camp they went on until they could finally have a sleepover with me in year four. But maybe if they started later then they would still get a bit homesick even now in year six!
So, if you're worried about your child going on camps early, then just remember my story.
I would say that the Candlebark camps have changed my life and encouraged me to do stuff without my parents. I have had fun doing these things.
The Candlebark camps are amazing and if there is some sadness or pain, I have never seen kids stay in it for the whole camp and when they are sad, they are always being comforted and distracted, there is always someone looking after them and it really helps them in the long run. I have been here seven years and it really helps.
I like them because it’s like having a break but you do all this fun stuff in the break and you’re taking a break and relaxing.
If when our grade are in high school and you are going on a huge camp like two weeks and you still need your parents and you’re crying and homesick, that’s probably not going to end the best for you in high school so if you do it at an early age, you can get through it and it’s much easier when you’re older.
It’s about having fun and learning and getting a lot braver and exploring and just learning how to do more stuff.
It’s also learning that if you do get homesick it’s learning how to overcome homesickness before a bunch of really big stuff.
It gets you ready for the next level of life and gets you ready to leave your parents without having to feel sick in your tummy or anything like that. It’s making you more mature as a person.
If kids don’t want to go on camp, they have to remember that if it hurts, that’s ok because it’s worth it. I didn’t want to go and I got very homesick but that was only at night. I don’t remember crying during the day and same for other kids. The whole camp is about learning and having fun and hanging out with your friends and they will have a blast! They will have the best memories, they will get yummy food and they’ll get to explore the town. They should bring five dollars to spend at the op shop and the lolly shop!! They will only get sad or frustrated for a fraction of the time and it’s not worth skipping this because if they stay home they won’t get to experience this time. They can always get help from the teachers and other kids and it’s so much fun and over the years, they won’t get sad, they’ll feel great! So please, make them go on camp!
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Created with images by AOFTO - "old wood texture,wallpaper" • AOFTO - "old wood texture,wallpaper" • kalafoto - "christmas fairy lights on a wooden table,studio shot."